Has the world gone mad?! Part One...

This blog is supposed to be about what crosses my desk but sometimes I get distracted by the world outside my window. So, this one's about football..

City the richest soccerball club on the planet, able to hoover up all the star names into some sort of galacticos globetrotters XI?! Not credible! I have a soft spot for City, even though they got Colin Bell from us (yes, Bury FC) on the cheap all those years ago. I still remember a joyous May evening back in 1968 when Maine Road hosted an end-of-season celebration match between City (Champions of the First Division) and Bury (promotion from the Third Division); you don't get that sort of thing these days. And that's the point. City are the classic "we love them but we know it'll all end in tears" club - that's why the fans sing Blue Moon as their theme song - once in a blue moon (eg 1968) they win something, and then they go back to their perennial almost/nearly/if-only status. Bernard Manning (never thought he'd crop up in my blog!) had two jokes about City: the four stands at Maine Road are just like the City back four, each has its own style and none of them work well together; the stands at the new City of Manchester Stadium are wonderful, what a pity they built them facing the pitch. And City fans will laugh along with the rest of us because City fans have to have  a kind of post-modernism Mancunian sense of ironic laughter just in order to survive being City fans.

So, I'm sorry but I don't believe it. Russian oligarchs can take over Chelsea and American financiers can take over Man U - yes, that seems to fit. The Newcastle owner can wear the shirt, down his pint in one, and make insane decisions that have King Kevin going off in a huff again - yes, that seems to fit. But a mega-rich Arab property consortium bringing riches and trophies beyond imagining to the club which remembers Peter Swailes and Franny Lee? Sorry, even after Thaksin and Sven, even with the splendid City of Manchester stadium,  even with Robinho, Ronaldino, and Ronaldo, we all know it's going to go pear-shaped.

Back in the mid-1990s I was at Maine Road when City went down 0-1 to the Mighty Shakers (aka Bury FC). The goal was scrambled into the net with City's defence in a shambles by Bury central defender Paul Butler, himself (of course) a life-long City fan. As the game restarted a City fan sauntered slowly onto the pitch, shredding his season ticket and tossing the scraps of paper away, until he was led away by kindly stewards. At the end of that season, Bury survived in what is now billed as The Championship, and City went down to the third tier of English football. I'm sorry Dr Sulaiman al-Fahim, but we all know the true tradition of City is one of occasional triumph and perennial disaster.

Can the riches of Abu Dhabi overcome the Blue Moon tradition? And if City becomes a success on the backs of bought-in galacticos will it still remain City - or will it become just like Chelsea and Man U? It used to be - to quote my old school friend and City fan Colin Shindler - that, for City fans,  Manchester United ruined their lives. Could it just be that for the true Blue Moon fans with their wonderful capacity to laugh in the face of adversity, the riches of Abu Dhabi are about to ruin their lives? Can riches bring succes on the pitch but ruin the soul of a football club? I think we're about to find out...